Gov. Bill Haslam has signed into law a bill that proponents say would allow Tennessee residents a choice when it comes to federal health care reform.

The “Tennessee Health Care Freedom Act” passed the General Assembly recently, and the Republican governor signed it today, according to legislative records.

Advocates and Republicans who pushed the law say it allows residents to avoid the requirement that they buy health insurance. Parties in various court cases have been battling whether the “individual mandate” is constitutional (which it is not), but Democrats say it’s necessary to bring down costs (then why has the CBO projected premiums to rise after Obamacare? CBO found that premiums in the individual market will rise by 10% to 13% more than if Congress did nothing.), and have created assistance for those who can’t afford insurance.

State Troopers Carry Union Protesters From Senate Committee

Troopers at the Tennessee Capitol have forcibly carried out seven union supporters after their protest disrupted a Senate committee hearing.

The seven were among a group of protesters who stood up during the Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday and began chants about what they called “union busting” by the state Legislature.

Most demonstrators left the hearing room after about 30 minutes, but a small group tried to lock arms to keep from being removed. Troopers pulled the holdouts out of the room one by one, while lawmakers, lobbyists and other observers looked on.

Note: Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey was the first lawmaker to email a statement to media on the protests, namely this:

The right of all citizens to protest and assemble peacefully is sacred in the State of Tennessee. However, this General Assembly will not be intimidated by nomadic bands of professional agitators on spring break bent on disruption. We talk through our differences here. Tennessee is not Wisconsin.

Now maybe this time they will get this bill passed and maybe we’ll also be able to some day soon elect our Attorney General and make him/her accountable to the people in the future, instead of appointing the AG by the Supreme Court of Tn.

Tennessee Health Freedom Act Returns

Senator Mae Beavers and Representative Weaver to file “Health Freedom Act” protecting patient’s right to make their own health care choices

(NASHVILLE, TN), January 13, 2010 – State Senator Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet) and Representative Terri Lynn Weaver (R-Lancaster) announced today they will file legislation to protect the freedom of Tennessee patients to make their own health care choices, regardless of the federal action taken in Washington last year. The bill is similar to legislation Beavers passed in the Senate last year. That legislation, however, was not approved in the House of Representatives.

“The health care law passed by Congress last year is ‘big brother’ at his worst,” said Senator Beavers. “The citizens of Tennessee believe they should be able to choose whether or not they want to participate in a federal health care plan. That is what this bill seeks to accomplish.”

The Tennessee Health Freedom Act, does not seek to “nullify” any federal law, as it would still allow individuals the option to participate in a federal program. However, it acknowledges the right of Tennesseans to refuse to participate in a government-run health insurance program.

“The Tennessee Health Freedom Act, would protect a citizen’s right to participate, or not participate, in any healthcare system, and would prohibit the federal government from imposing fines or penalties on that person’s decision,” said Rep. Weaver. “It seeks a remedy to fight back against the overreach of federal power on the private lives of our citizens.”

Financial experts predict that the federal healthcare plan will consume any anticipated growth in Tennessee’s revenues once the economy recovers, crippling the state’s ability to make future improvements in critical needs like education, job investment and public safety. The federal health care law will also penalize citizens beginning in 2014 if they do not buy insurance.

“We are talking about stiff penalties that will escalate to 2.5 percent of a citizen’s taxable income by 2016 if they do not purchase health care insurance,” added Beavers. “This will put a heavy burden on citizens who are already struggling to make ends meet. I am very hopeful this legislation will pass our General Assembly this session.”

Well this shouldn’t be a surprise to many of our readers here at Off My Front Porch, the fact that Obama has jumped into the Islamic Mosque controversy in Murfreesboro, Tn on the side of the muslims of course.

Obama Justice Department joins the fray
in Murfreesboro, TN—on the side of Islam

In the shadows of the Election of 2010, the Obama White House is scrambling for votes—any votes. And, convinced he’s about to lose Bible Belt Tennessee to the Republicans, it appears as though the White House figures it will take whatever stragglers from Tennessee the Democrats can get.Barack Obama‘s going after the melting pot vote: the social progressives, the ethnic and cultural minorities, the union crowd and the Islamic vote in Tennessee by backing the backers of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. On Mon., Oct. 18, 2010 federal attorneys jumped into the middle of what has become a major brouhaha in Rutherford County. In fact, the brouhaha was caused by US Attorney Jerry E. Martin of Nashville who told the Nashville Tennessean that his office would not sit quietly by while opponents to the Murfreesboro mosque raised questions about the nature of Islam and, Martin said, whether or not Islam is a recognized religion. (Martin was appointed US Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee by Obama on March 25, 2010. Obama, as we all know, is a champion of religious liberty in the United States providing those religious freedom rights are based on Liberation Theology or Islam.Martin‘s claim to fame before his appointment as a US Attorney? He was a major fund-raiser for Obama in 2008. Aren’t you glad we have such qualified people serving the American people?)

Thomas Perez, Assistant US Attorney General and head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told reporters on Tuesday that the DOJ’s decision to file an amicus brief to support the Murfreesboro mosque (which has already violated Tennessean health laws), was done to affirm Islam’s right as a religion. Perez noted that it was “…an action to defend a very, very important principal that this nation has fought for, which is the principle of religious liberty.” It is amazing how the social progressives can wave the flag of religious liberty and expound the virtues of the 1st Amendment except to protect Christianity and Christian values in America. Perez, like all of his political bosses in the Justice Department and the Executive Branch of government, is a hypocrite since under our increasingly totalitarian judicial system, religious liberty applies to all religions except Christianity and, increasingly, Judaism. Perez reiterated “…the Attorney General’s very strong commitment to use every tool in the Department’s law enforcement arsenal to route out intolerance.” The federal courts, up to and including the United States Supreme Court no longer reads nor applies the Bill of Rights when it considers the 1st Amendment. Instead, the federal courts have erased the 1st Amendment and replaced it with Articles 13 and 14 of the UN Covenant on Human Rights. No longer is there a presumption of an inalienable right to worship God as we please even though the 1st Amendment clearly prohibits government from restricting our right to worship God wherever and whenever we please. Under the Covenant on Human Rights, government has the right to restrict religious liberty to whomever they wish and grant that precious gift to whomever they favor. That’s how a political-theological system can be granted protection under the 1st Amendment and Christianity is denied that same protection.

The Obama-Holder Justice Department will do what it can to make it appear that what is going on in Murfreesboro is pure racism rather than a political debate. Which, of course, is the reason the DOJ Civil Rights Division is weighing in with allegations of racism and anti-religious bias.

But, when you talk to Kevin Fisher, a Murfreesboro corrections officer, a Republican running for the school board, and most of all, a Black American leading the fight to stop the mosque, he will be the first to tell you that “…this has nothing to do with racism or racial intolerance. It’s about a difference of opinion. In America, that’s okay. Religion. Race. These are just code words used to distract people from the real issues. If Home Depot was burying bodies in the water supply, I would be equally concerned.”(The reference to burying a body in the water supply stemmed from the Islamic Center burying a body on their recently purchased property—without his body being embalmed, or without being placed in a casket.. The act was done without a State permit and before a death certificate for the deceased was even issued. The body was buried in May and the death certificate was not issued until October, long after the battle for Murfreesboro had began.)

While the lawsuit filed by the Murfreesboro mosque opponents questions the right of the Muslims, under the 1st Amendment, to build the mosque, their argument is not that Islam is not a “recognized” religion, but that it is also a recognized political system that is not entitled to 1st Amendment protection. So, just as it would be hard to deny that Islam is a religion, it is equally as hard to ignore the fact that Islam is the most feared political system in the world—much more feared that communism as the height of the Soviet threat in the 1960s. Furthermore, Tennesseans are concerned that Muslims in western Tennessee will use their enhanced position to advocate for Shai’ra Law and for Shai’ra courts in that State and across the nation.

Martin filed a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro in the wake of the bitter, national debate in New York over the Cordoba House Mosque, better known as the Ground Zero Mosque in lower Manhattan. While those fighting the mosque argue in a new lawsuit filed against officials in Rutherford County that the county violated their own “open meeting” law in how they granted the building permits without fair and open debate on the issue.

In another lawsuit filed by Murfreesboro lawyer Joe Brandon, Jr., opponents are attempting to block the county’s attempt to force the citizens to pay for their elected officials deception in approving the site for the Islamic Center. Further, the suit argues that county officials “acted knowingly, willfully, maliciously and with oppression and reckless and callous disregard to protect the citizens of Rutherford County…” by allowing the property to be used as a cemetery, educational-cultural teaching center (i.e., cultural brainwashing), and a Shar’ia teaching and interpretation center without requiring a new zoning classification. Brandon‘s suit was scheduled for a hearing on October 20.

Earlier testimony from former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney outlined the dangers of Shar’ia law based on the advocacy of the Muslim Brotherhood in a report entitled “Team B.” The Muslim Brotherhood which is involved in the construction of the Ground Zero Mosque in Manhattan. The “Team B” Report is a 1991 strategy paper for the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) that was found by the FBI in a raid on a Virginia home with the arrest of an indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist-funding case. The report describes the group’s goals in the United States.

“The Ikhwan (Arabic for Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”Brandon noted that the principle conclusion of the report is that “Shar’ia” is an enemy threat to the United States because it is a totalitarian political ideology—its seditious purpose is the replacing of the US government with a Caliphate that must be differentiated from the religious practices of peaceable and law-abiding Muslims. The second finding, according to Brandon, is that Shar’ia obligates its followers to engage in “jihad” to the extent that it involves violence as we saw on 9/11. It can, he concluded, involve mass murder and great destruction.

In his testimony, Gaffney identified Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two al-Qaeda leader to Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the captured mastermind of 9/11 as trained members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Which is the basis for the argument of the Islamic Center’s opponents that the center does not meet the standards set for its designation as a religious meeting place. Gaffney’s testimony raises the specter of whether the mosque should be afforded protection under the 1st Amendment , and protection under the Religious Land Use and Act of 2000 that was enacted to protect the right of citizens to build churches within their communities without fear of discrimination from city or county governments. The Justice Department, of course, has flipflopped the law and is applying it against the people of Murfreesboro who bitterly oppose the construction of what they view as a political threat to their own religious liberty.

This stuff on religion and the government has gotten completely out of hand. The 1st amendment is written to only “Congress” and when you study the Founding Fathers you learn they did all kinds of things in their day that would be declared unconstitutional today by the courts, like the 1st Congress purchased 20,000 Bibles to be used in the schools, like Thomas Jefferson giving government money to build a church for a Indian tribe and paying the first years salary of a pastor as well. Let’s use a little common sense here, don’t you think the Founding Fathers knew more of what they meant when they wrote the 1st amendment than people 200 yrs later would? There is a poll at this website below that you may want to participate in.

How Should Schools Respond to ACLU Letter Warning About Promoting Holidays?

The American Civil Liberties Union sent a nice Christmas letter to schools in Tennessee. Oops, sorry. We mean a nice holiday letter.

As we near Christmas, the ACLU branch in Tennessee felt that it was time to send a note to schools throughout the state, reminding them that they should be careful about promoting one religion over the others, according to The Associated Press.

Hedy Weinberg, ACLU executive director in Tennessee, told the AP that people need to “embrace the constitutional guarantees of the First Amendment in order to ensure that religious freedom flourishes.”

Winter celebrations, that highlight other religions, are allowed according to the ACLU, and for the most part, schools carefully follow district guidelines in connection with any holiday parties. This, not shockingly, has some parents displeased.

Alliance Defense Fund Responds to ACLU Threats and Lies.

The Alliance Defense Fund is contacting school districts in Tennessee to correct some fallacies from the ACLU about celebrating Christmas.

“I think it’s another story of the Grinch who stole Christmas,” says David Cortman, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). According to the attorney, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee sent a letter to every school district in The Volunteer State.

“…Basically saying,” explains Cortman, “that if you’re going to celebrate any aspect of Christmas at all, then you’re constitutionally required to celebrate every holiday — which of course is not true.”

The attorney says he finds it “interesting” that the ACLU letter used words such as “divisive,” “indoctrinating,” “coercive,” and “censorship.”

David Cortman (Alliance Defense Fund)”…It’s ironic that they use such heavy-handed words when people are merely trying to celebrate the Christmas holiday,” he comments.

ADF has responded with a letter of its own to the school districts, informing them they do not have to deny students and teachers their constitutionally protected right to recognize Christmas just because of the threats issued by the ACLU. “It’s just the ACLU using their bully pulpit to try to whitewash anything religious from society, even if that includes Christmas,” states Cortman.

The ADF attorney explains that the ACLU’s letter to the Tennessee school districts “smacks of political correctness” and has little or no legal basis.

This one is sure to be debated quite a bit in the near future,but according to the Nashville news a majority of folks want it passed.

Tennessee Considers Arizona-style Law

Tennessee’s legislators plan to consider a bill next year styled after Arizona’s SB 1070, even though the state already has strict laws targeting illegal immigrants.

State Sen. Bill Ketron and Rep. Joe Carr, both Republicans, are preparing a bill that criminalizes illegal immigrants and authorizes local law enforcement authorities to detain “any person” suspected of being in the country unlawfully.

“You can’t deny how [illegal immigration] is affecting us, from education to healthcare to the judicial system to incarceration, and more importantly the number of jobs it’s taken away,” Ketron said.

Like Tennessee, other nearby states, including North Carolina and South Carolina, have expressed an interest in starting out the new legislative session in 2011 reviewing measures similar to the law in Arizona, the first in the nation to criminalize being in the country unlawfully.

Tennessee, where foreign-born people account for roughly four percent of the total population, already has restrictive measures that will take effect on Jan. 1.

The most controversial is SB 1141/HB 670, which requires local jails — despite no training, funds, supervision or access to federal immigration databases — to verify the immigration status of all those detained. There is also a measure that allows businesses to insist that employees speak only English for “security and efficiency.”

During the vehement debate over the implementation of SB 1070 in Arizona, a group of Tennessee legislators sent a letter to that state’s governor, Jan Brewer, praising her for signing the bill into law.